


Just Hold My Hand And We're There

by boybandotpcentral



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Kinda, M/M, OT5, i fail at maps, implied lilo??, it has road trips and shit, pls forgive, this is based in 2020??, zayn centric lmao ay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 13:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1746764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boybandotpcentral/pseuds/boybandotpcentral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Y’alright?’ Louis asks, and Zayn turns to look at the older boy who hasn’t taken his eyes off the road at all. It’s a bit weird, because Louis doesn’t do sentiment or serious conversations but he’s grateful.</p>
<p>‘Yeah, I’m alright,’ he says, because he is.</p>
<p>(Future Fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Hold My Hand And We're There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bradfordbuttfuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bradfordbuttfuck/gifts).



> this one is on tumblr if youve read it already i was so proud of this one like damn

Zayn has been dreading today. It’s not the casual kind of dreading like, oh no, whatever will I do if today happens. No, he is downright shitting himself and his brain is a jumbled mess of  _oh fuck no_  and  _how fast will I hit the ground if I jump out of this window right here_.

Their contract ends today.

He’s not nervous about that, the boys and him have talked about it and have agreed to no hard feelings or any of that bullshit, because their friendship goes way deeper than producing albums, but he kind of may have told them that he’s going home after the split to have some quiet downtime when he’s not. He’s going to start working on an album—a  _solo_ album—and he’s failed to mention any of that to the boys. It’s not like he  _wanted_ to lie or keep it from them, he just said yes when management asked and forgot to bring it up. He’s wondering how the fuck they’ll take that. Maybe a punch in the face or some disappointed staring? Zayn’s going to bet on the first one times four.

He wouldn’t be like this if the label had just left the final meeting on him and them, but no, the other boys’ are invited too, for a last cup  of tea and talk about the future and it’s making Zayn piss himself. (He realises how selfish that thought actually is, and a distant corner of his brain is convincing him that it’s better this way; that it’d be worse if they found out when the album got released to the world. Zayn still feels like he’s betraying four functional human beings anyway, so it doesn’t work).

.

Niall’s the first one in the room, breezing in in his snapback and jeans, still looking like the 20 year old Zayn knew 6 years ago. And it’s ridiculous how he’s talking like he hasn’t seen the younger boy in a fair few years, he’s seen Niall almost every day, and the thought of betraying  _him_  makes Zayn want to take a plunge and stay there.

‘Bro!’ Niall gives him his trademark half hug without even letting Zayn get up and slips into the seat next to his, arms stretched behind his head. The sense of familiarity the younger boy radiates chokes him a little and then it’s tumbling out so fast Zayn’s not sure where the fuck it came from, his voice high and rushed like he’s going to have an epileptic seizure or some shit.

‘I’m going solo.’

Well,  _fuck_.

Niall turns towards him, eyes a little wide and the corners of his lips quirk up just a little.  _Oh god_ , Zayn thinks, heart sinking,  _he’s going to laugh at me_.

‘I know, Zayn.’

And  _oh_.

‘You know?’

‘Course I know ya big soddin’ doof, we all know, look at yer face you look like yer dyin’,’

Zayn touches his cheeks absentmindedly, face fixated on how Niall’s smiling at him.

‘How do y-?’

‘’Coz we got mails ‘n like, informin us, we do got the same label as ya, yknow,’ Niall takes his snapback off and puts it on the table. ‘You suck at lyin’ by the way, downtime at home, like,’

Zayn carefully stares at him, but he’s chuckling about it so that’s something.

‘And you guys are, like, cool with it?’

‘Why wouldn’t we be?’

The older boy takes a careful breath.

‘Like, you dun’ hate me or summin?’

‘The hell you talkin’ bout?’

And that’s the end of that.

.

The sense of relief Zayn feels as the rest of the boys walk in makes him want to kiss several faces and stretch on a beach. Harry even pokes his head and calls him Mr Solo, and it throws him off a little but at least they don’t hate him. (The sense of betrayal is there, but it’s faint, and they seem pretty happy about being betrayed, so he figures fuck it).

The meeting’s a breeze, the boys being supportive little darlings when they give Zayn a contract to sign there and then, and his hands shake a little, but he manages to steel himself—he does want this a lot, even if he feels like shit when he shouldn’t. There’s tea and muffins and old men Zayn’s seen around their studio offices occasionally and lots of pats on their backs and it doesn’t seem too bad anymore.

Niall cries a little when they have to leave. Zayn doesn’t blame him.

.

They’re walking to their cars and the silence seems comfortable in a way, but it’s choking the rest of them and he knows it.

‘That was a good ten years, wasn’t it?’ Leave it to Liam to get sentimental.

‘Don’t you go cryin’ on me, Payno,’ Harry bumps his shoulder and Liam laughs and bumps it back and Zayn feels a distant ache in his gut that he quickly suppresses. They’re not dying, just going away and doing different things.  _Get a grip, Zayn_.

There’s silence till they reach Liam’s car, and it’s like an unspoken agreement that they’ll see each other home today. Louis speaks up as just as the younger boy unlocks his car and everyone turns to look at him.

‘So, since this is  _the end_  or whatever,’ Louis air quotes his way through half the sentence and Zayn’s relieved that they have the spunky ball of fire he is. ‘Why don’t we do something disgustingly intimate, like knit together and go on a road trip or like, have an orgy?’

The way Niall bursts into loud giggles and it brings the ache in his gut back. Zayn wishes it’d stop already.

.

They decide on a road trip. Minus the orgies.  (Maybe).

.

Zayn throws everything he can get into the bag, since Louis seems bent on leaving right the next day at like 4 fucking am, determined to bring Zayn back in enough time for him to make his demo recording appointment thing in two weeks’ time. It makes him feel profoundly endeared and the ache burns his side just a bit more.

The days are crisp for early April, and it’s sunny for once so he throws in a shit load of tank tops but also jackets and woollen scarfs just in case the countryside decides to fuck his shit up and his life is a circus but he’s pretty okay with it.

.

Louis is at his door at 5:11 in the morning, the other four already piled up in his van, grumpy and half asleep. Zayn’s wide awake for some reason, hasn’t slept a wink since yesterday, so he just throws his bag in the boot climbs into the front with Louis, eyes fixated on the sky which is still kinda dark, and this reminds him of the early morning flights and drives when they used to tour. It brings the ache back so he closes his eyes and tries not to think. The seat is cold under his legs and the soft roar of the engine is lulling him to sleep but then not at the same time and it’s way too early for this. 

‘Y’alright?’ Louis asks, and Zayn turns to look at the older boy who hasn’t taken his eyes off the road at all. It’s a bit weird, because Louis doesn’t do sentiment or serious conversations but he’s grateful.

‘Yeah, I’m alright,’ he says, because he is.

.

They make it to Hertfordshire before Louis’ whining about how everyone else are selfish little shits and he’s tired too and Zayn why don’t you have a driver’s license its been ten years and I hate roads who’s  _fucking idea was this_.

Niall takes over the wheel and Liam cuddles Louis and tells him to shut the fuck up.

.

It’s more comfortable with Niall next to him, the guilt’s not that prominent anymore, because the younger boy tells him shit jokes he learned from Harry whose sense of humour has taken an even deeper plunge in all the years he’s known him. Zayn laughs at every one of them, even though Niall doesn’t press him to.

He feels like it’s changed somehow, like the boys’ are treating him like a time bomb or something that’s gonna break if they drop it too fast, and he doesn’t know how to tell them that it’s fine. That he’s still Zayn. Zayn who’s going solo. But still Zayn.

Niall’s not treating him any different, and it makes him feel better.

They drive until quarter to seven before a grumble from Harry’s stomach reminds them that they haven’t eaten a thing today, and Zayn’s surprised he had honestly forgotten. They stop at a duty free on a petrol station and pile out like puppies with cramped legs. It reminds Zayn of tour again, and he supresses the ache and tells himself to get a fucking grip.

.

‘Arite captain Solo,’ Zayn has barely turned around, doesn’t know why he’s responding to that nickname, when a piece of folded up paper hits him in the face. Niall’s snorting in the background.

Zayn rolls his eyes and rubs his forehead offhandedly, unfolding the paper with one hand, eyes trying to make sense of whatever the fuck he’s being subjected to.

It’s a map, he realises after five seconds of dumb staring, and you might as well tell him to stare at Chinese.

‘A map,’ he robotically states and Louis claps his shoulder.

‘Yes, yes navigator!’

_Shit_.

And his panic must show on his face because Niall—god bless his soul—jumps to save his arse.

‘We have GPS in the van, Lou,’

‘Yeees, but all Captain Solo’s done is mope and look into the sunrise with a permanent expression of angst on his face and he needs to sort himself out,’ a sharp slap on Zayn’s butt and he’s breezing away with his breakfast bar, yelling something about a diesel refill.

Zayn’s fucked and Niall looks like he knows it and finds it hilarious.

_Fuck you all_ , Zayn thinks as he holds the map in front of his face, realising thirty seconds in that he’s holding it upside down.

He’s fucked  _as hell_.

.

He takes his time in the toilet stall, deep sighing at everything because how the fuck could he forget how cruel Louis could be, not in a harsh way, but just in a I love you so I’m going to torture you until you love me back even more kinda way. It’s so incredibly Louis, Zayn muses as he wees, hoping someone else took the map or decided to use the GPS after all, like sane human beings.

(They didn’t).

The damned thing is lying neatly folded on the back seat, where Louis has already called bagsies on riding shotgun and Liam’s fiddling with the steering wheel. He grumbles, considers chucking the map out the window, doesn’t and jams himself between the door and Harry where the curly haired boy is messing with his phone. The car hasn’t even moved five minutes away from the service station when Louis is turning in his car, grin bright and eyes sadistic in a way only the boys’ understand.

‘Which way, navigatorrrr? You can pick the place, by the way, no judgement,’ the older boy adds, teeth on full display and it’s disgusting how much he’s enjoying this. Zayn can slap his pretty little face. Instead, he just grimaces and unfolds the map slowly, wondering how lost they can get before someone just turns the goddamn GPS on; they’re all fucking insane who let them adult  _for god’s sake_.

That’s why he does a double take—and thank fuck no one notices—when he sees a place neatly circled in bright neon green with Hshire scribbled on top of it and a place further up circled with the same pen, Norfolk scrawled across it. There’s a bright green line highlighting the route between the two places and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. He recognises the hand writing and then he doesn’t and Louis’ is still looking at him with his eyes twinkling so he just mumbles ‘Norfolk,’ and the older boy looks away satisfied.

One hell of a demonic map this is turning out to be, Zayn thinks, maybe we’re all gonna die and I’m luring everyone to their death or something.

He mentally slaps himself.

.

Norfolk has a beach.

Well it has a sea and stuff and Louis has stripped down to his leggings— _leggings_ —and tank top straight away, running to slam dunk himself into the water. Liam holds him back and Zayn stares at the way the younger boy hand lingers on Louis’ waist before he lets go, red in the face.

Well,  _hello_.

It’s still considerably sunny out, and it’s not too cold so Zayn just stays put in his tee and sweats and sits down on the sand, intending on watching the boys make messes of themselves in the water. It doesn’t work out very well, and before he knows it, Harry has dragged him into the shallow end of the water and he’s wet and he can’t swim but they’re all laughing around him, rubbing sand into his hair kicking water on him and making people stare so it can’t be that bad.

He laughs with them and the ache goes away completely for a few hours.

.

Louis books a holiday cottage some five minutes’ drive away from the beach and the pubs and stuff, and no one comments on the fact that there’s only one bedroom, or how much this reminds them of the first time in Harry’s stepdad farm house. Everyone eats the provided pancakes and burgers in silence as the sun goes down, huddled up on the floor in blankets. It’s all so domestic, all so tour-like.

Zayn’s nostalgia threatens to choke him.

‘Is there where we have the orgy?’ Louis pipes up, mouth full of chicken and everyone laughs and that’s the end of it.

.

(They don’t have an orgy).

.

Zayn finds himself squished between Liam and Louis with Niall sleeping almost wholly  _on top_  of him and he finds comfort in the warmth the younger boy provides. He isn’t entirely sure how he wiggled his way up to Zayn from where he had been when they’d turned the lamp on, perched on the corner, but Zayn’s not complaining.

The next morning’s a blur; mostly Louis yelling at them to shower and move it at 8 am, and it’s lots of disoriented falling around and screaming and Zayn wonders what they’ve done to deserve Louis but a small voice tells him they’d all be probably dead on the floor if it wasn’t for the older boy so he shuts up and gets with it.

‘We’re going to Ipswich, navigatorrrr,’ Louis drawls after him when he trudges into the bathroom to shave and maybe shower. He resists the urge to flip him off and reminds himself to google where the fuck Ipswich is.

.

His mysterious neon green map friend is back when he climbs into the passenger seat and picks the bloody thing up, turning it around twice before he can see where what is. Onward from the Hshire scrawl there is a new green line and a new ‘ IP’scrawl and Zayn feels both creeped out and thankful at the same time.

.

‘I think I’m being haunted,’ he states through a mouthful of McDonalds as they sit on the grass in silence. He’s not sure who’s fucking idea was to go to a park when Ipswich looks like it’s gonna get rained down like a weather bent Pompeii, but here they are. Louis turns to stare at him curiously.

‘Haunted?’

‘Yeh by like a,’ another bite. ‘Demon or summat.’

Liam snorts to his left.

‘Of course you are,’

‘Yeahh, it wants the booty,’ Harry pipes up and Zayn wonders how they got—still get—anything done. He notices when Niall gets uncharacteristically quiet and smiles into his burger and shakes his head. Some demon he’s being haunted by.

.

They sleep in the van that night. Niall finds his way to him again.

.

Not much changes in the next week or the week after. Louis keeps dragging them to places Zayn can’t be arsed to give a shit about, there’s lots of driving, he gets yelled at for never getting his damned license more than once and there’s lots of junk food and laughter. Niall cuddles him every breathing hour of the day, and Zayn doesn’t wanna sound like a cliché little bastard, but he wonders why he didn’t think of Niall like that before. Not like an over hyped puppy, but how the sun makes his eyes look and how pretty his blush really is. It makes his heart ache less.

He has officially  _lost_  his shit and needs to get laid very soon.

(And if Zayn sees a bright green pen peeking out of Niall’s back pocket, he doesn’t say anything).

.

It’s the last night before they drive back to London for Zayn to make his studio appointment that’s in two days, and he’s shitting himself to say the least. He’s never done it without any of the boys, sure he’s done solos but he’s never actually  _done_  a solo song and it’s going to screw him up. They all reassure him that they’re going to be there to support him—the Malik trophy wives, as Harry puts it—but it just makes Zayn worry more because  _what if he fucks up in front of them_.

He sits on the bonnet of the car, grumpily biting into his burger, his can of Fanta jammed between his thighs where he can slowly feel his jeans dampening. The boys don’t question when he goes to sit alone, maybe they know how it feels even though they possibly  _can’t_ , and Zayn feels selfish and traitorous and uneasy at the same time.

He doesn’t notice when Niall comes and bounces up onto the car with him with a loud thunk until he does, all smiles and pretty face, and  _wow_ , Zayn _really_  needs to get laid.

‘You okay?’

He’s quiet for a second, carefully avoiding his eye and staring into his food and then nods, a sigh escaping him before he means to.

‘I just-‘

‘I know,’ Niall cuts him off, a hand coming up to rub Zayn’s shoulder briefly. ‘I know how you feel.’

Zayn wants to tell him that he doesn’t, that he feels guilty and wants to back out but he doesn’t. He just nods again.

Niall doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Zayn sneaks a glance, and in the setting sun, he looks even prettier than the colours in the sky. He sighs and accepts he’s fucked on so many levels; he’s 27 for fucks sake, childish crushes and all.

‘You don’t owe us anything,’ his head snaps up to stare at Niall and the younger boy’s staring at his jeans, looking a lot smaller than Zayn remembers him being.

‘What?’

‘We know how you feel, you’re really bad at being discreet yknow?’ Niall takes a deep breath. Zayn raises his eyebrows. ‘You look guilty all the time, like you owe something to us, but we honestly love what you’re doing, and we’re here to support you, until you don’t like…,’

‘Until I don’t what?’ Zayn doesn’t know why he sounds so desperate; it feels so good to finally let this out of his system and he needs to hear it. He needs to hear what the boys think. What Niall thinks.

‘Until you don’t forget us? I guess? I think Louis would sue your arse off b-‘

‘Never,’ Zayn hurriedly says, and Niall looks up at him with a grin. ‘I can’t forget you if I tried,’

If he means the boys or if he means Niall is a question he doesn’t have an answer to.

Niall grins and nods at him, and they sink into silence. Zayn contemplates his odds, figures he really doesn’t give a fuck and takes a swig of his Fanta.

‘I know it was you,’

‘Hmm?’ Niall’s wrapping up Zayn’s dirty burger bag and looks up at the older boy with a soft smile. ‘What was me?’

‘The map,’ Zayn doesn’t know why he sounds so breathy, but he can’t quite catch his breath. (It has nothing to do with Niall’s stupidly pretty face).

‘The map what?’ Niall’s grinning now, and Zayn realises what a little shit he is.

‘You marked my map every day,’ it sounds ridiculous and a vague sexual innuendo if Zayn thinks about it too hard, so he doesn’t and Niall’s grin increases tenfold.

‘I did.’ The younger boy laughs and Zayn wants to grab his face for some reason. ‘I was in the boy scouts for two years; know me way around, ya know with maps and shit. ‘N you thought you were being bloody haunted, like,’

‘I did,’ he whispers, taking another nervous sip of his Fanta, feeling oddly intimidated under Niall’s mischievous stare.

‘That was funny stuff,’ there’s silence for a while and then. ‘You owe me now, though.’

‘You sound like Louis,’ Zayn chuckles, a weird part of him begging for the younger boy to ask him for a kiss. Or something. He is fucked.

‘I know but, I wanna ask the favour now please?’

Zayn’s heart drums in his chest. He nods. Niall grins.

‘Coffee. Tomorrow.’

Zayn blinks.

‘You want coffee?’ Of  _course_  it was something stupid, oh god what has Zayn done.

‘With me, like.’

‘Like?’

‘Like a date, with me.’

And  _oh_.

Niall presses on.

‘I wasted ten years asking you this, I’m not gonna waste another ten watching you become uber famous and never getting the chance again, yknow?’

Zayn knows, doesn’t know why he never thought of Niall like that before, but when he starts to consider the possibility, he can’t stop.

.

(He says yes to the date).

.

The demo goes well, and Zayn signs up for his own single, and no one even bats an eyelash when Niall kisses him congratulations.

The ache goes away and Zayn finally feels like everything’s working out now.

 


End file.
